Some of the oldest records put a third deity alongside Aelir and Dovak. Where the capricious trickster of the Above and the stalwart protector of the Below are well known throughout myth, legend, and history, this third is almost never mentioned except by name. Vamisel.


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    After returning everyone to the Astralla City townhouse, Eythron went off to his scheming while Jair went upstairs to sit with Raina. She was still trying to recover from the ordeal of remembering being killed, and Jair didn''t know of any way to make that less horrifying. Whether she’d be able to block it out or integrate it and adapt, he didn’t know. All he knew was he didn’t want her to face it alone.


    “I’ll be right here. Speak up if I can help with anything.”


    “All right. Thank you.” Her lifeless reply made him feel there should have been something more he could do. They may have forestalled the issue at Meliarn, but now she was back in a secure environment, it couldn’t be put off forever.


    The temptation to find a way to exclude her from the time travel just a little so she could go back on this one thing rose ever stronger. But that had to be her decision. He’d promised himself not to steal her future and that meant not forcing his idea of protection on her either.


    As he sat quietly meditating, he slipped into his soulmap. It was a tangled mess of a thing by now. Pieces replaced by Maelstrom, other pieces replaced by Meliarn, sections torn apart by Mercurios, and the connections that Jair had been reshaping on his own time. That was going to be a lifelong project, at this point. Carefully adjusting and reinforcing each section wasn’t something to be rushed through.


    Souls, particularly old and scarred ones like Jair’s, didn’t change easily. Without the damage Mercurios had done, he wasn’t sure if even these improvements would have been possible. Anything changing the soul took a lot of time and effort, and the deeper the areas the harder to change.


    The central region was entirely formed of Maelstrom. But things had been changing since the last time he checked.


    Threads and lines trailed off out of reach, fading from his perception as they left the realm of his own soul. The line to Raina was strong and interwoven through multiple different sections, and instantly recognizable. It was unlike any of the others. Strong and thick and purest black, putting Darkflame to shame for how dark it was.


    Jair could poke it or tug on it, but he couldn''t directly change it. He tried moving it a little and it didn''t budge. As though that black void thread was the anchorpoint around which the rest of his soul was connected.


    "Yeah, definitely nothing weird going on here," he muttered.


    He couldn''t stop wondering what was going on with Tempest. Maelstrom was one thing. He''d reforged and ascended it with the most powerful ingredients available across the planet and all three moons. But Tempest had been nothing but an ordinary soulsword, not even held for a full year yet. Not even reforged, and it was already soulbound and had its first ability.


    And a terrifyingly powerful one at that. To anyone but Jair, Temporal Rebirth would be a game-changer among game-changers. To him, it was the reassurance that he wasn''t alone. Not now. Not ever again.


    And neither would she.


    So he released the soulmap and scooted up on the bed, then leaned over to rest his shoulder against Raina''s.


    They just sat there. She didn''t speak, and neither did he. No words were necessary. Simply staying in one another''s presence.


    And when she casually slipped her hand over to claim his, he threaded his fingers through hers without looking. They just fit. Like they''d always been meant to.


    Then she made a small sound and leaned against him, shaking silently.


    “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “This is my fault.”


    “Don’t.” She exhaled heavily and rubbed at her eyes. “None of this is your fault. I knew the risk, you gave me every chance to change the plan or stay back. I…” She shook her head, voice low. “I’m trying to understand. It’s hard. I still want to.”


    “If you want to talk through any of it, I’m here. If you’d rather not, you don’t have to.”


    “I died.” Raina swallowed and closed her eyes, one hand gripping Tempest’s hilt. “It was so empty. I couldn’t… there was nothing I could do.”


    “You shouldn’t have to remember that.” He’d died enough times to be used to it by now, to the point where it wasn’t much of a consideration. Even trying to think back to his earliest memories within the loop, he couldn’t quite recall anything specific about his deaths. Raina’s, he recalled in vivid clarity, but his own were more of a formality.


    “I couldn’t see anything,” she said low, haltingly. “Endless emptiness, slowly turning to ice. I didn’t know what was happening. Only that I’d failed. All the different choices I could have made and instead I led everything straight into disaster.”


    “No. This wasn’t your fault either. You haven’t failed. We can’t fail. We’ll get it right, protect everyone you lost. And you won’t have to wait in that emptiness again. I won’t leave you behind. As long as we’re together, I can always revert before it gets that far. I can ”


    “You can be my constant temporal bodyguard, make sure I never have to experience that again.” Raina looked at the floor with a sudden surge of guilt through her features.


    “I will.” Jair could guess what she was feeling guilty about, too—Raina was too kind, like that—so he continued, “And no, you are not a burden.”


    “What is this, then, except for being a burden? You fight hard enough battles already, but now you’ll have to constantly look out for me, ready to protect me or loop back, just to keep me feeling ‘safe’, just because I couldn’t bear something you’ve already faced so many times…Is it always like that? Every time you…?”


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    “Never. Maelstrom was holding your soul, not letting it dissipate, but that’s not how it is for me and won’t be like that in the true end. I can’t promise I know what comes after, or if there is any after, but I do know it isn’t that.”


    “Still. There’s no way I’m really worth that much. To throw away everything else you could do just to guard me? It doesn’t make sense. It’s one thing when I’m being hunted by a dragon, that’s specific and directly damaging to everyone around me, but you’re talking about just following me forever? Don’t you have more important things to do than waste your time on me? Shouldn’t you be—”


    “Rai,” Jair interrupted sternly. “You keep me sane. You’ve kept me sane, just with your existence, and now, you’re keeping me alive. Hopeful. Human. You’re one of the very few things stopping me from losing myself, or just giving up. It would be so easy to slide into apathy or destruction, to disregard everything and everyone as meaningless shadows. You’re one of the very few people who’s willing to suffer for me, someone I trust. How dare you. How dare you call yourself a burden?”


    Raina opened her mouth before closing it again, bewildered.


    “You are a blessing to me, Rai. Only and always.”


    The sheer emotion in his words must have gotten through to her, since her ears and neck turned a lovely shade of red. “Still…”


    “Say the situation was flipped,” Jair asked, “You wouldn’t do this for me?”


    Raina, once more, opened her mouth, clearly ready to say something like, ‘but that’s different!’ before she closed her mouth and nodded. “...I would.”


    “And you’d have thought of it as a burden?”


    “...no.”


    “And neither will I. Not for a single moment.”


    She nodded and didn’t speak again for a long time.


    Finally she swallowed and looked up at him. “It feels like none of this is real. Like I’m trying to pretend I believe in a phantom version of the world because I can’t accept the truth.” She raised her free hand and turned it over and back again, then let it fall to her side. “Is this even me any more?”


    Jair didn’t know what to say to that. It echoed too much of what he experienced almost constantly. He chose his words carefully after a few seconds of mulling over them. “I’ve faced something like this myself. After a while of starting over again and again, events happening and then not, remembering things no one else did… yeah. Nothing feels real. This moment probably will be undone. But that doesn’t mean it’s pointless or meaningless.”


    Raina blinked at him uncertainly.


    “The way you feel now, the confusion and pain, does it matter that the event that caused it was undone? That it never happened and will not happen again? We are phantoms threading our way among echoes. The only future that will be is the one that we choose. But the path is just as important. This moment changes me, changes you, even if it makes no impact to anyone else. Even if it never happens or will have happened again.”


    “But what’s the point, if everything feels so… hollow, so empty?”


    “I don’t think that’s something I can answer. For me, the point is you. Lilin. The people my original self was incapable of protecting, who I couldn’t save. Seeing you live your own lives, decide your own futures, rather than having them cut short or dictated by others. That’s what matters most to me, more than saving Veor or stopping Sekir or any of the rest of it. If you want us to leave it all behind, I will.”


    Raina didn’t reply immediately. They simply sat there for a few seconds, the silence not quite comforting, but not painful either.


    “I’m not sure I know what matters to me,” she said eventually. “I’ve always been training to take on my family’s responsibilities, but now that all feels so far away. With dragons and sorcerers and the fate of whole continents… I don’t know if I can go back to managing my house’s finances and arranging shipping and maintaining storage inventories.I don’t know if I can be satisfied with showing off in occasional tournaments.”


    “Life changes us all.” Jair held up her hand, still interlaced with his. “Just because this timeline might not be real in the end, does that make it any less real right now? For you, for me? We have the opportunity to change anything and everything, however we desire. And if that means spending a few years away from it all while you sort out who you want to be, all you need to do is ask.”


    “It feels wrong.” She blushed and looked away. “You have all these grand timelines and important friends and massive disasters to prevent. To bring up my petty emotional confusion feels so selfish.”


    “Then be more selfish. Eythron’s right, it doesn’t have to be my job to fix everything for everyone else. You and Lilin are the ones I’ve chosen to commit myself to. I’ve solved the plague, destroyed the curse, saved the king. That’s more than enough.”


    “What about Sekir?”


    Jair shook his head. “All of this, it was only escalation and retaliation. It never happened in previous timelines.” Mainly because Raina hadn’t been alive, so everyone had taken Jair’s existence out on his immediate family instead, but that wasn’t relevant at the moment. “Whatever Sekir’s actual plan was, I disrupted it, so he went overblown vengeance to get back at me. All we need to do is go far away and he won’t have a target to take it out on. I’ve been fighting him almost out of habit more than anything.”


    A few seconds passed, the silence present comfortable enough that neither of them spoke.


    “We can…” Raina laughed softly and shook her head. He could see the corners of her mouth rising. She cozied herself up against his shoulder once more, and Jair kept his arm steady around her, trying to express that he was there, that she wasn’t alone, that he would never let her be alone, not while he was still breathing. “I think I know why you’re all heroic. This much power is overwhelming.”


    “It doesn’t have to be.”


    “But…” she waved a hand at the city around them. “How am I supposed to justify walking away? Condemning all of Veor to destruction because I didn’t want to have to deal with it?”


    “There is no way to fix everything. To prevent one disaster is to allow another. Being in one place means being absent everywhere else. If we save Veor now and Celsin in four years, Almas will remain as it has been and magic will remain strong. If we allow them to fall, Almas will be reshaped and an era die out, but life will go on.” He hesitated, but had to make the offer. “If it’s too much, if you want to go back to your family and normal life, I will find a way to release you from this. Maelstrom has bound your soul without your knowledge or consent. You don’t need to feel obligated to continue deeper into this madness.”


    The very thought of her forgetting every single time, not knowing, being alone once again stung, stung so immensely, but Jair was used to being stung. He didn’t struggle this hard and fight this long only to crumple in the end. This fabulous woman in front of him… She deserved so much better. Nothing in any world would convince him to let her experience such torment when she did not want to. He would not force her to follow his path, however easy it would be.


    He wasn’t expecting the lightness in her voice when she replied. “Silly. Of course it had my permission.” She wiped her face and squared her posture. “I didn’t understand what it would mean at the time, but I would have given almost anything to be able to stay in the loop with you. And that doesn’t change now that I know more. I want to help. I want to save Almas and protect the magic of Celsin with you.”


    Jair shook his head, overwhelmed. “Every time I think I’ve figured you out, you manage to surprise me.”


    “The only thing worse than living with myself and the knowledge that I chose to run away and leave you to fight this war alone would be not even knowing it’s happening,” she said firmly. “You always promised we would travel and have adventures. You’re not planning to go back on your word, are you?”


    “I never would.”


    She scooted around to face him more fully and leaned closer, a mischievous smile on her face. “Then you have only yourself to blame for this.”


    He couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy it.


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